Role model effect in a harsh environment: science olympiads in Northeast Brazil

Abstract

The present work aims to understand the impact of an award at OBMEP (Brazilian Mathematics Olympiad of Public Schools), on school math scores in a harsh environment.For this purpose, it is used the Panel Model with Fixed Effects, applied to public schools in Ceará, State in the Brazilian Northeast. In total, 1,882 public schools were followed between 2009 and 2017, observing specifically K9 students.While the previous literature demonstrates the impact of schools participating in OBMEP and how awards have an impact on the award winners, this study demonstrates how the effects spillover towards their peers.In short, all awards have positive and statistically relevant impacts, but agoldmedal is, on average,3.2 times more impact ful than the others.